It has come to my attention that world leaders like JD Vance and Steve Bannon are avid and enthusiastic readers of a computer engineer named Curtis Yarvin. He has written mostly about politics but also about technology and current affairs.
What might be most alarming to some that our future vice president is taking Yarvin’s work as an influence, is that his writings are largely composed of anti-democratic and pro-authoritarian themes, along with some inclusion of racism (he claimed that some races are more suited for slavery; I invite you to guess what race he thinks that is).
You see, Yarvin is one of the founders of something called the “Dark Enlightenment” movement, which “argues” against democracy and against egalitarianism – a school of thought that people have equal intrinsic value and are deserving of equal rights.
The reason I placed “argues” in quotes is because Yarvin’s writings do not fall under the category of rigorous political philosophy. They are often written in a style that is purposefully and pretentiously difficult to understand that makes it nearly impossible to extract comprehensible arguments.
Instead of concrete arguments, Yarvin’s writings are mostly composed of unsubstantiated claims and obscure references that he doesn’t explain to make it perfectly clear to his audience how well-read he is.
Despite fashioning himself as a political theorist, he is far from a competent one. Here’s a small sample where he is explaining that his “deep-right” movement must involve authoritarianism:
“The deep right knows that all government is absolute. Because of this, the deep right is only interested in paths to absolute power.”
Why would all governments be absolute? If his primary reason for thinking that his deep-right movement should seek to bring about an authoritarian regime rests on this dubious assumption, then it’s already completely undermotivated. He doesn’t explain why a government like ours isn’t a straightforward counterexample.
“It treats all other paths as traps, since they are by definition dead ends.”
What definition? Why must they be dead ends? He doesn’t explain or argue for any of this.
“The more attractive the first steps into a trap, the deadlier the trap in the end—and political traps can last decades.”
Why would we believe that the attractiveness of the steps into a trap correlates with the deadliness of the trap? Again, there are no arguments to be found. This small passage is highly representative of Yarvin’s writings in general: a lot of bold, eye-catching claims, and very few reasons provided to actually believe them. In most cases, philosophy of this kind is better categorized as bad poetry, not as a means to systematically examine theories and concepts or a means to form rational beliefs about them.
This is precisely where people like JD Vance and Steve Bannon have gone wrong. They have confused bad poetry that mentions the Dark Enlightenment, for reasons to believe in the goals of the Dark Enlightenment.
In a blog titled “Idealism is not Great”, he attempts to “argue” that Idealism, and not religion, is to blame for the violence and destruction that has gone along with religious systems. The entire thing relies on him merely presupposing that this is the case, and a fundamental misunderstanding and misapplication of the concept of platonic universals (Idealism): a philosophical theory that identifies properties like “redness” as abstract entities whose nature can be instantiated by concrete objects like apples.
“An Idealist is a person who believes that universals exist independently. Specifically, in the modern sense, your Idealist believes in concepts such as Democracy, the Environment, Peace, Freedom, Human Rights, Equality, Justice, etc., etc. What do these concepts have in common?[…]they are impossible to define precisely. It’s fairly clear that they have no meaning at all. For example, John Rawls wrote a whole book called A Theory Of Justice which purports to be a rigorous rational derivation of the New Deal regime.”
This is a perfect demonstration of his being well read enough to mention the concepts of academic disciplines but not educated enough to use them correctly. Subscribing to the theory of platonic realism has no bearing at all on political leanings or really, anything of practical concern at all.
This also has nothing to do with Rawls. Rawls’ work does not deal at all with the general nature of properties. Instead, he attempts to explore the nature of Justice. Contrary to what Yarvin claims, he does indeed define it and it does not depend at all on Rawls being a Platonic Realist.
“A little while ago I explained that religion, if we define it as a system of belief involving anthropomorphic paranormal entities, cannot directly affect reality.”
I had the misfortune of clicking on his link: he does not explain that at all, he just claims that it’s the case. Let’s be as charitable as possible and say that he thinks that by defining religion as such, it becomes a platonic form, which itself could not have causal efficacy in the world. Why does this need to be expressed? A system of belief can certainly affect reality. My parent’s adherence to the system of belief that tells them that God wants them to attend mass, directly causes them to attend mass.
This is nonsensical junk food for pseudointellectuals. If we were to someday depart from democracy, these idiotic ramblings should play no part in it at all. And yet, it is reportedly informing people in our highest offices.
There is a reason peer-review exists and it’s not to stop the radical ideas of “free-thinkers” that go against the system – it’s a mechanism that filters out unrigorous nonsense like this so that we don’t have to waste time on it. There are plenty of academics who have published legitimate attacks on the merits of democracy and egalitarianism. It’s a good thing that JD Vance and Steve Bannon want to read about political philosophy, but why look to a computer scientist for answers?
Rafael Perez is a columnist for the Southern California News Group. He is a doctoral candidate in philosophy at the University of Rochester. You can reach him at rafaelperezocregister@gmail.com.
